


Come to Rescue Me

by imachar



Series: The Weight of a Man [5]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, M/M, References to Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-16
Updated: 2013-05-16
Packaged: 2017-12-12 00:41:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/805137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imachar/pseuds/imachar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yet more angst. Three days after <b>Sierra</b> (see the 30 ficlets series) Phil finally talks about his past. And then there's sex :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come to Rescue Me

**Author's Note:**

> **Zauzat** did an alpha-read and fixed a lot of early problems, but it's been unbeta'd since then so all remaining mistakes are all mine....

Neither of them is sleeping well. Not an unusual state of affairs after a mission in which they’ve lost crew, but Chris finds it more than a little unsettling that, for once, _he’s_ not the one waking every night, shivering and sweating and choked with fear. 

It’s been three days since the fire-fight on Mantilles and three days since the disastrous aftermath that had left Chris flayed and bleeding and Phil almost catatonic with guilt. They haven't spoken of it since and it’s very clear to Chris that Phil is struggling with the idea that, as patient as Chris is willing to be over this, he’s not going to just let it go and the conversation that neither of them seems to know how to start is going to come sooner rather than later. 

Now, lying in the dark, wakened by the shadow of a nightmare, Chris reaches out and finds the other side of the bunk not just empty, but cold, as if Phil’s been gone for hours. The digital numbers of the clock in his bedside comm unit click over from 02:45 to 02:46 and with a groan he rolls out of the bunk and pulls on the sweatshirt that he’d discarded on the floor only three hours earlier. 

The rest of the cabin is dark but, as he walks through from the sleeping alcove to the living area, there’s just enough ambient light from the comm screen in power saver mode for Chris to make out that Phil is sitting on the couch, hunched forward with his head in his hands. 

“Hey.” He keeps his voice low, and only after he’s spoken does he stretch out a hand, to sweep his fingers through Phil’s hair, massaging his scalp with gentle fingers. 

“Hey back. Sorry, did I wake you?” Phil rolls his neck and rubs his head against Chris’s hand.

“No, I think you've been out here a while.” Chris sits and to his surprise Phil leans into him and Chris finds himself shifting to wrap his arms around Phil’s shoulders, his cheek coming to rest on soft, thick hair as Phil tucks his head under Chris’s chin. 

“You okay?” Chris is well aware that it’s a stupid question, of course Phil isn’t okay, apart from the fact that he’s sitting awake in the middle of the night, it’s almost unthinkable for Phil to be the one that needs comfort. Phil is Chris’s rock, the most emotionally and psychologically stable person he’s ever known and Chris can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times he’s needed to lean on Chris. 

Wrapping himself a little more tightly around Phil’s solid warmth Chris instinctively starts to rock very slightly in response to the almost imperceptible tremors that are shivering through Phil’s frame. Still not entirely sure what has prompted this particular bout of insomnia, he’s silent until Phil finally sighs and confesses, in a quiet whisper. “I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry that I lost control. I could have hurt you so badly.” 

In fact Phil _had_ hurt him very, very badly – albeit temporarily – but Chris doesn’t think that would be a particularly productive way to respond and he whispers instead.

“Enough, enough with the guilt. I could have stopped you anytime, and I was just too fucking stubborn to say the word. So no more apologies.” He rubs his chin in the soft thick hair at the crown of Phil’s head and then tightens his grip at the feel of Phil shivering again. “Anyway, that’s not what’s giving you the nightmares, is it?”

“No.” Phil sighs and pauses, and for a moment Chris thinks he might be about to spill what’s really going on here, but then he takes a deep breath and Chris can feel the body in his arms stiffen with tension, or resolve, or just plain bloody-mindedness as Phil continues. “You don’t need to sit up with me, I know you’re tired.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” Chris tries to keep the exasperation out of his voice as he goes on, “D’you remember Baja? All those hellish nights after Zalda, when you sat up with me; I don’t think you ever fell back asleep before I did.” 

In the aftermath of that particularly disastrous mission it had taken weeks for Chris to sleep through the night and he had been unutterably grateful for Phil’s presence in those long, dark hours when the horrors he’d suffered, and witnessed, at the hands of the Klingons had haunted him, sleeping and waking. It had only been the sound of Phil’s voice, deep and sure and unceasing, that had kept Chris from drowning in guilt and despair and that had driven away the demons long enough to let him sleep for a few hours at a time. “You used to recite Shakespeare and Homer and fucking great big chunks of Gilgamesh.”

Phil sighs as if he’s remembering all those long, tortured nights and then whispers, almost wistfully, “Phantoms diminished for one when two can see and stay awake to talk of them…” Then he manages a short, slightly sardonic laugh. “We should have that on a fucking plaque above the bunk.”

“Yeah, well maybe it’s time for a little payback. Not that I can distract you with the classics. The best I can probably do is a treatise on why the Holy League was successful at the Battle of Lepanto; maybe some Sun-Tzu, or Marcus Aurelius.” There’s an edge of humour in Chris’s voice, but it doesn’t get a response from Phil who just rubs his head against the underside of Chris’s chin and, realizing that Phil’s pain goes far too deep for his customary humour to be anything other than irritating, Chris tightens his hold a little further and rubs his hand gently across Phil’s shoulder, the t-shirt soft under his fingers. “Sorry, I’m not trying to be an ass, I just don’t know how to help.”

“It’s okay. Just give me some time.” He shifts a little to get comfortable and Chris feels the arm of the couch digging into his back. He nudges Phil to get him to sit up straight and then orders, “Stay there.” Before he heads towards their disorderly bunk. 

It only takes Chris a few moments to gather up all the pillows as well as the velvet-soft quilt that he has had since he was a boy and he brings his haul back to the couch and sets about making both of them comfortable. He’s about to settle back onto the pillows, making a space for Phil to lean back against his chest when Phil tugs firmly on his sweatshirt. “Skin, please?”

“Sure.” And Chris strips it off, watching as Phil sheds his t-shirt and they settle back together, skin on skin, the quilt wrapped loosely around them both. Silent for a few long moments, Chris strokes his fingers lightly through the soft fur of Phil’s chest, letting his cheek rest against Phil’s head, watching as he rubs the silky nap of the quilt between strong, agile fingers. 

“Better?”

“Yeah.” Phil pauses, and rubs the quilt against his cheek. “You’ve had this since I’ve known you, where’d it come from?”

It’s a strange non-sequitur, but Chris understands that he might have to let the conversation wander a little before Phil gets to the point and he wraps his fingers over Phil’s and strokes one against the piece of garnet velvet that is gripped in his fist. “From my grandmother, she made it the Christmas I was thirteen.” He can’t quite contain an ironic little chuckle. “It wasn’t the most exciting Christmas present I could have wished for and I was maybe less than suitably grateful at the time, but I can’t imagine going anywhere without it now.”

“S’beautiful.” There’s something unbearably sad and wistful in Phil’s voice and Chris waits out the pause that follows, letting his thumb stroke lightly over the back of Phil’s hand, doing his best to provide a little reassurance until Phil goes on. “I know you and your Dad have your issues, but you had a pretty decent childhood, yeah?” 

Chris thinks about that for a moment. With Josh in space most of the time, it had been primarily Alice who had raised him, with occasional input from his grandparents – on both sides – and Alice’s sisters. He’s well aware that he had been utterly adored, and sometimes entirely too indulged, in part to make up for the much stricter regime that always went into effect when Josh was home. “Yeah, Mom probably let me get away with too much, so it was always a rough transition when Dad came home, but things were good, mostly.”

“You were happy? Safe?” Phil shifts and Chris finds himself looking down into Phil’s face, his eyes guarded, dark with a kind of wary uncertainty that Chris has never seen from him before and it makes his world tilt a little on its axis.

He rubs the back of Phil’s hand again, beginning to get a sense of where this is going, and Chris can feel an ache deep in his chest at the thought of what is to come. “I know Dad comes off as a bastard some times but, like I’ve said before, his bark’s worse than his bite. He’s got a really short fuse, but it never amounts to anything serious.”

Phil tilts his head and pauses for a brief moment before he goes on, “You told me once one night when you were fifteen you drove his vintage motorbike into a drainage ditch.”

“Yeah?”

“What did he do to you?”

Chris pauses and, as he thinks about his response, he tugs Phil close once more and rests his chin on his head. He’d done a lot of stupid things as a teenager, but since Josh had been in the black for most of them he’d got off fairly lightly. However, the incident with the Ducati had happened while Josh was on a command break and while he’d been in San Francisco at the time he’d come home to Mojave in a towering rage the following day. When he’d been called into the study Chris had been genuinely terrified, for about thirty seconds, which was all the time it took for him to realize that, for all the screaming, the worst Josh could possibly do was ground him and rescind his, albeit quite generous, privileges for a while.

“He yelled at me for about ten minutes and then I was grounded until I worked off the cost of the repairs, I spent every weekend for two fucking months cleaning out the holding pens at Mom’s clinic.” He can’t see Phil’s face, but Chris can feel the tension in his body, the muscles tightening as he takes a breath and then asks, an edge of distressed suspicion in his voice.

“He didn’t hit you? Even then?”

“Christ, no.” Chris is appalled at the thought. His relationship with Josh has never been easy, both stubborn, willful, determined men and they’d started butting heads when Chris had been about four, but there had never been even a hint of violence between them and he shudders at the thought. “Jesus, no Phil. Fuck, is that what you lived with?”

“Yeah, for a long time.” Phil tries to pull away and, after a moment of surprised resistance, Chris lets him go, watching as he shifts around on the couch and curls in on himself, his legs pulled up and arms wrapped tightly around his knees. There’s a part of Chris that wants to reach out and uncurl him, stretch out with Phil on the couch and let him wrap himself tight around his own powerful body, let him draw comfort and security from his strength. But he doesn’t, this is too foreign to him, Phil’s vulnerability is so unfamiliar that Chris is a little lost himself, unsure of how to make it better, and afraid to make it worse. So, as much as he hates being passive, he just shucks the quilt and drapes it over Phil’s shoulders and then watches and waits until Phil is ready to explain. 

He starts slowly, with stuff that Chris already knows from his file. Phil’s parents had divorced when he was five and he and his brothers had stayed in Maine with his mother while his Dad had taken a job at the Federation communications hub in Omaha. For four years there had been intermittent communication, but no visits; and then, on one horrific January morning his mother – an emergency first-responder – had been killed while responding to an industrial building collapse. Sent, with his brothers, to live with their father in Nebraska, the file is then silent about anything other than the bare bones of Phil’s life. An outstanding student, a more than adequate hockey player, Phil had been admitted to three of the top pre-medical programs in the world before choosing instead to stay close to home and plough through his three-year undergraduate program at the small, but well-regarded, Jesuit-run Creighton University and from there on to Starfleet Medical when he was twenty-one.

“I kind of remembered his temper from when I was really young, but Mom probably shielded us from the worst of it.” Phil shrugs and rubs his hands through his hair. 

“D’you think he hit her?” Chris hates the uncertainty in his own voice; he has no idea what questions to ask, or how to ask them. As far as modern society has come in terms of supporting families and intervening to prevent family violence, Chris knows that it still exists but, in his forty-plus years, he’s never encountered anyone who has personally suffered it and he suspects that Phil’s reticence to speak of this is as much about shame as remembered pain. 

“In retrospect, yeah, that’s probably why she kicked him out. But we were too young then to know what was going on. Then she was gone and there was no one in Portland to take us so we were shipped half way across the fucking continent where we didn’t know anyone, to live with this mean son of a bitch that even I barely remembered. About a week after we got there I dropped one of his PADDs. It was an accident, I wasn’t even being careless; it just slipped. He hit me so hard I went deaf in one ear for a month.” 

“Jesus.” Chris’s heart stutters at the almost casual way Phil throws out that last sentence and he can’t stop his hand from flexing with tension. Obviously aware of his distress, Phil reaches out and rubs Chris’s knee gently before he pulls back into himself. “It was bad, for a long time it was bad. But we survived.”

There’s some part of Chris that has always suspected that this was in Phil’s past, enough hints over the years of a family that he doesn't visit, that he barely mentions; but still his gut twists to hear it spoken aloud. He can’t imagine living under the constant threat of violence, can’t imagine coming home every day never sure what will trigger the next outbreak of abuse. For Chris, home had been a sanctuary; as popular as he had been at school, and as much as he’d been comfortable there he’d always been a little bit of a loner. Too focused on getting into the Academy and too independent to participate in the petty, aimless fun of teenage groups, home had been the place where he’d been free from the expectations of his peers. Even now, there is no place on Earth that he loves more than the ranch outside Mojave. The thought of growing up with out that kind of security makes him want to throw up, or scream or, preferably, beat the shit out of whoever was responsible for taking that away from Phil. 

“How did you stand it?”

“We had each other.” Phil turns his head and rests his cheek on his knee, his face only faintly visible in the barely-lit cabin. “By the time I was fifteen I was strong enough that he didn’t dare touch me anymore and I made sure he knew that if he touched the other two I’d have fucking killed him. That’s why I went to Creighton; I got to stay home until Dominic was old enough to take care of himself.”

He stops, and Chris can see the way his jaw is clenched, can almost hear his teeth grinding as he steels himself to go on. “I know I should have got them out of there, but I had no idea how. I should have gone to the school counselor, asked someone for help…but you get into this hostage mode and all I could focus on was not making things worse, just getting through every day…” The regret in Phil’s voice makes Chris ache and, heartsick, he stretches to bestow a brief touch on Phil’s shoulder, trying not to take it personally when the only response is a badly disguised flinch.

“You _were_ a hostage, Phil. Even I know that much.” 

There’s a long silence as Phil rests his face in his hands, and Chris winces, watching as Phil rubs hard at his temples, obviously fighting off an incipient headache. 

Then, not sure he wants to know the answer, but determined not to let the conversation die, Chris asks. “Was it random, did you ever know what set him off?”

Phil just shakes his head. “Not really, sometimes it was a bad day at work, sometimes it was one of us in trouble at school, or sometimes he was just being an asshole and needed to take it out on someone who couldn’t fight back. I figured out pretty fast that he was easier to deal with if he was drunk or sedated, so I got good at doctoring his meals.” For a brief second he cracks a smile. “He shouldn’t have made me responsible for food prep.”

“You drugged him?” There’s no accusation in Chris’s tone, just a little incredulity, but Phil’s eyes harden for a moment, sharp and angry in the dark.

“You’re fucking right I did.” He holds out a hand to Chris, the vulnerable underside of his wrist facing up. “When I was eleven he restrained me for a beating by tightening down a woodshop vice so hard on my wrist that he crushed all the carpals.” There’s tension trembling all the way up Phil’s frame as he turns around fully on the couch and looks Chris in the eyes. “When Mick was nine he accidentally let the dog out and when we were done getting her back, Dad took his belt to him and then locked him in the dog crate in the basement until the next morning. For six years…” Phil pauses, his voice cracking slightly. “Fuck, Chris, I don’t want you to hear this. I’ve lived with it for forty years, you shouldn't have to.”

And it’s that combination of hurt and characteristic self-sacrifice that finally galvanizes Chris, sending him across the couch to wrap his hand around the back of Phil’s neck and pull him close. “No…no…we share this like we share everything else, good and bad.” 

He can feel Phil resisting and, without letting go, he gentles his grip, stroking his thumb up into the soft short hair at his nape. There’s a part of Chris that wants to ask if Phil thinks he’s not strong enough for this, if Phil’s trying to protect him. But, even as he thinks it, Chris knows that this is not about him, and he takes a moment, leaning in and rubbing his cheek across Phil’s temple, pausing to lay a brief kiss on the warm skin. “Tell me whatever you need to tell me; however you need to tell it. I’m not going anywhere.” 

There’s another long moment of silence that tests Chris’s already fragile patience and then Phil sighs out a breath and stops trying to fight the comfort that Chris is offering, his body sagging slightly as he rests his weight on Chris’s strength. “Okay, okay…”

In the end he describes only a few more stomach-churning instances of violence; of a blow that broke his nose, a beating that flayed his back to the muscle, but Chris feels the pain in every word. 

“Jesus, Phil. Did nobody notice? Didn’t you miss school?” 

Phil shakes his head, “No, when we were shipped west all the stuff in the house went too, including Mom’s medical kit. It made for pretty fucking slow and painful regen sessions, since Dad wasn’t exactly an expert, especially with the osteo-regen unit. But he made damn sure we never left the house with obvious injuries.” The pain in Phil’s voice is submerged in bitterness now, and Chris slowly grasps that, as painful and terrifying as the actual abuse had been, it’s the sense of betrayal that still resurfaces occasionally to haunt Phil’s nights; the hurt that comes from knowing that such cruelty could be inflicted by someone who was supposed to love him unconditionally and the guilt that he didn’t do more to protect his brothers. 

“Dominic never got over it, it fucked him up so badly he ran away when he was seventeen. It took Mick and I a couple of years to track him down. He’d washed up on Cygnia Minor but he was killed in a bar fight a few months before we traced him.”

“Fuck, I’m sorry.” That’s not in Phil’s file, there’s no mention of Dominic other than his existence as Phil’s youngest brother; Mick, on the other hand, is the chief administrator of New Providence, the Federation colony on Jouret IV and the only family that Phil ever mentions. 

“You’ve never talked about any of this.” Again, Chris manages to keep his tone level, no judgment, just curiosity and Phil shifts against him, body warm and slowly, very slowly, beginning to lose some of the earlier tension. 

“Yeah, well it’s not the kind of conversation that comes up every day and most of the time I like to think that it’s past, it’s not a part of me anymore. I spent years talking it through from every possible angle with people from Psych. ”

Chris is surprised at that, and it must show on his face because Phil shakes his head, and responds with a faint chuckle. “Fuck, you think you can get through five years of Starfleet Medical training without spending a shit-ton of time in front of a psych counselor? I must have hashed through all of this a dozen times before they slapped that first Lieutenant stripe on my arm.” He smiles, a wry, caustic twist of his mouth, and then leans in to rest his head on Chris’s shoulder, his lips brushing lightly over Chris’s early-morning stubble as he goes on. “You think I could have come out of that clusterfuck and be the man you know without years of therapy? I spent an entire fucking decade fixing the damage and getting some kind of perspective on it. I owe what I am now to a whole cadre of professionals who deal with this shit day in and day out. “ He sighs, and rubs his face against Chris’s bare shoulder. “It’s okay.” A slightly more definitive kiss follows, before he whispers again, “It’s okay. I worked very, very hard to get past this”

Relieved that the tension has dissipated, if only slightly, Chris lets himself slide down flat on the couch, bringing Phil with him, the two of them wrapping around each other in a silent, contemplative embrace under the warm weight of Chris’s quilt.

They lie there for a long time, resting in the dark until Chris finally breaks the silence, curious and pensive as he asks, “Is this why you like control?”

Phil shakes his head impatiently, “It’s not that simple.” And he shifts so that he can prop himself up on Chris’s chest.

“It’s not just about control; it’s about controlling _you_. You’re stronger than me. Do you have any idea what an incredible fucking turn-on it is that you give me that control voluntarily – that you _surrender_ to me because you _choose_ to.” 

He takes a breath and places a soft kiss on Chris’s sternum.

“You don’t have to give me that, but you do anyway. Chris, you could take me down with one hand tied behind you, but you trust me, you hand yourself over to me trusting that I’ll take care of you, that I’ll give us both what we need…” He pauses and the pain is back in his eyes as he goes on, “…and then I fucked that up. And I fucked it up because we were tired and stressed and I was angry that you almost got yourself killed _again_ and I fucking tied you up…” His voice starts to fade out with the force of the emotion in it and he stops for a long moment. 

Uncharacteristically patient, Chris waits him out, watches the deep, steadying breaths and strokes his fingers through the silvering hair at the crown of Phil’s head as he finally goes on, “…and what happened next scares the fuck out of me. I flayed you to the bone, Chris. How does that make me any different from him?” 

There’s such deep regret in Phil’s face that Chris is compelled to pull him close, leaning their foreheads together. “You are _not_ him, Phil. You’re not.” 

“You sure about that? Because I’m sure as hell not.” Phil pulls away again and he shivers as Chris strokes a gentle hand through his hair. 

“I’m sure. Fuck, you think I don’t know you? I trusted you the first night we were together.” Chris rubs his thumb across the deeply furrowed line on Phil’s forehead, smooths out the finer lines at the corner of one eye, and his mouth twists in a wry smile. “I know that probably says more about me than you, but Phil, I’ve never had any reason to doubt that trust. Never.”

And finally Phil smiles, a small, genuine lightening of his expression. “Okay, I’m not going to argue the point.” And then the smile vanishes and his brows draw together. “But we're not taking that kind of risk again, I will not put us – put you – in harms way like that again, ever…” 

Chris has a moment of heart-stopping fear, he can’t imagine going without the release that he gets from going down for Phil, but before he gets a chance to say anything Phil shakes his head, clearly reading Chris’s incipient distress.

“No, you dumb fuck, not everything, just the part where we’re stressed and angry and I tie you up with leather belts.” A reassuring kiss feathers across Chris’s chest and then Phil lays his head right above his heart. “We need better rules, darling boy.”

“We can do that.” Chris tugs gently until Phil raises his head and then encourages him to wriggle a little closer until they meet in a slow, sweet, gentle kiss. It lingers for a moment and then Chris slides his mouth up Phil’s cheek, the slightest shiver of arousal sparking through his body at the stubble burn, even though he’s well aware that he’s too tired to do anything about it. 

“But not tonight, because I’m really tired and I think we need to go back to bed, 06:00 is going to come really soon.”

****

It takes a few more days for them to finally wrap up the formalities on Mantilles. For Chris to file the incident reports and deal with the next-of-kin letters and for the ship’s company to come to terms with the loss of three of their own and lay them to rest deep in the heart of the nearest red dwarf. And then, finally, when the ship is quiet again, and they’re underway to their next mission – a satisfyingly boring mapping job in an as yet uncharted blue giant system – he and Phil finally manage to sleep through the night again. 

It’s one small step toward normalcy, and as much as Chris would like the next step to be a return to their customary routine of sex on a more-than-weekly basis, he’s uncharacteristically hesitant about being the one to initiate anything. After a couple more days Chris knows that the tension is becoming obvious to everyone and, when he snaps at his yeoman for forgetting to bring him coffee on schedule, he winces at his own incivility and tries not to notice Phil rolling his eyes. 

When he finally gets off shift, only a few hours after it officially ended, he’s not at all surprised to find the cabin in semi-darkness, Phil sprawled out on the couch in a pair of sleep-pants, a glass of Hendricks and tonic in one hand and a look on his face that’s one part irritated fondness and nine parts well-hidden trepidation. 

Gratified that he’s not the only one that’s a little nervous about resuming sex in the wake of all the stress that the last ten days have brought them, Chris defers, “Let me have a shower first, okay?” 

Phil just nods in response and sinks the remains of the cocktail, the rapid dispatch of what had to be at least a finger of gin – Chris is very familiar with the how Phil likes his drinks – is as good a tell as any that Phil is as unsure as he is about this.

When he exits the head, ten minutes later, Phil has moved to the bunk and the sleep pants are on the floor, although as a gesture of apparent modesty, he’s drawn the sheet up to his waist. As reticent as Phil is about being naked in public, he’s never been shy in front of Chris and it’s disconcerting enough that Chris hesitates for a moment, hovering in the doorway, suddenly very conscious of his own naked state as he rubs his towel hard through his hair. 

With the lights only at 10% it’s hard to make out Phil’s expression, but then he holds out a hand, Chris relaxes, dropping his towel and moving to slide up onto the bunk. “You okay?”

“I think I should be asking you that, you’re the one with the short fuse.”

Embarrassed, Chris feels himself flush and he drops his head, letting his forehead come to rest on Phil’s chest. “Sorry, I was an ass.”

“Did you apologize to Colt?”

“Yes, of course I did.” He looks up and leans into Phil’s touch as a warm hand strokes up his cheek. 

“Then we’re good, you just need to work off a little tension.”

Chris moves closer, one leg curling over Phil’s thigh, gratified when he feels the familiar twitch of arousal as Phil’s cock begins to stir. 

“What do you want?”

“I want things to not have changed.” Phil’s hand strokes down across Chris’s throat until it comes to rest on the bare skin of his chest, and his fingers brush through the thick dark gold hair before he flattens his palm against the broad muscles. “I want you to fuck me like I’m not broken, like you always do when I need to be reminded of how strong you are.”

“Okay.” It’s nothing Chris hadn’t been expecting, but his stomach clenches in trepidation and he has to consciously force down the uncertain sense that Phil’s asking for something that he might not be able to give, not tonight. 

Their customary path when Phil needs reassurance would be for Chris to use his strength, to hold Phil down and fuck him until they’re both lying wrecked and shattered on the sheets, fused together by the salt of drying sweat and the viscous slick of cooling semen. But he’s not sure he can do that tonight, not sure after the revelations of the past week that he can bring himself to wrap his hands around Phil’s forearms and use his strength to hold him in place, to use his knees to press Phil’s thighs wide and then line himself up and push deep with no prep. He’s not sure if he can be that pitiless, that overt in his use of power, no matter what Phil might say he wants.

But he can try.

It’s only when he pins Phil’s arms to the mattress and feels the bones of one wrist shift under his thumb that Chris realizes that he’s kidding himself. For the space of a heartbeat he tries to ignore the nauseating twist in his stomach, tries to push away the image of little boys with bruises and burns and broken bones, but he can’t. All he can think of is that this is the same wrist that had been crushed in a carpentry vice until the bones shattered. And with a harsh intake of breath he lets go and pushes himself away until he’s sitting back on his heels, fists clenched on his knees as he tries to breathe past the sick feeling in his stomach and the cold shivers pricking his skin. 

When he opens his eyes, Phil is staring at him, impassive in the dim light, his eyes a flat, cold blue, and Chris hates that he can’t read anything in the cool, even gaze. Phil makes no attempt to move or even speak and, just when the silence is becoming uncomfortable, Chris swallows down his unease and speaks. “I’m sorry, I can’t do this…not the way we usually do.” And he hates himself for the frustrated pain that flashes briefly across Phil’s face, but he pushes on anyway, holding up a hand to forestall whatever Phil might be going to say.

“Just give me a minute, okay?” He takes a breath and pushes on, relying on his customary swift thinking to come up with a solution before Phil loses patience. It takes him only a few seconds and then he’s moving with the kind of purpose that more typically defines his behaviour when he’s in uniform and on the bridge. 

“D’you trust me?”

Phil raises an eyebrow and Chris willfully ignores the fleeting pause before he gets a response. “Always.”

“C’mere then.”

Chris has settled himself against the bulkhead, resting on his knees – he’s pretty sure _that_ is going to be a really bad idea by the time they are done – and he reaches a hand to Phil who takes it and allows himself to be pulled up until he’s straddling Chris’s thighs. 

“Closer.” Chris wraps an arm around Phil’s torso, draws him into an embrace that uses all of his strength, biceps flexing as he slides his hand up Phil’s nape and curves the palm around the base of his skull. With his other hand on Phil’s hip he shifts both of them until their cocks slide together, and the feel of warm flesh on flesh draws a soft, involuntary moan out of Phil. 

“Good?”

“Good.”

They are nowhere close to fully hard yet – either of them – and Chris slowly rolls his pelvis until they are rocking against each other, the damp heat of firming flesh and the slowly rising scent of arousal making his breath hitch in his throat.

After a moment Phil leans in, rests his forehead on Chris’s shoulder and buries his face in the warm curve under his jaw and his breath is warm and fast against Chris’s skin as they wrap tight around each other and Chris is more than a little surprised at the feel of Phil moulding himself close and leaning on his strength. 

They move against each other for an age, arousal building in a slow, sweet, inexorable surge that has Chris groaning quietly as he holds Phil tight to his body and shivers at the feel of a warm mouth moving constantly over the skin of his throat and jaw. When he can’t stand it any longer, he curls his fingers a little tighter into Phil’s hair and tugs gently until he can slide their mouths together; the kisses wet and open, all tongue and gently nipping teeth. 

They’re panting quietly, perfectly in time, breathing each other’s air when Chris finally eases Phil up and slides his cock – slicked with the lube that’s always conveniently to hand by the bunk – along the deep cleft of his ass, brushing the blunt, slippery head across Phil’s entrance for a couple of long, teasing moments. 

“Yes?”

“Fuck, yes.” Phil breathes it out and presses down against Chris’s thick heat, bracing his back against Chris’s forearm where it’s holding him in place like an iron band. The muscles flex and Chris can feel the strain in them, and in his shoulders and back as he holds all of Phil’s weight for a moment until Phil finally relaxes and bears down. Chris moans deep in his chest as he sinks in, shuddering at the unbelievably intimate heat and constriction of Phil’s body as he slides deep in a single, long, excruciatingly unhurried stretch.

Chris has to work hard for the orgasm, his muscles flexed, body taut with the strain of taking Phil’s weight as he fucks up hard, again and again. But the feeling of Phil wrapped close around him, face buried once more in the curve of Chris’s neck, arms and legs twined tight as they move together – trusting him, needing him, leaning on him – is enough to push him towards the precipice. It takes one last supreme effort for him to take all the strain with one arm, freeing the other so that he can slide his hand between their bodies and wrap it around Phil’s slowly thrumming cock, stripping it with quick, short strokes in the constricted space between their bellies. And then they are both coming, the thick slow surges of wet heat on his hand spilling in time with his own cock as it spends in two, then three, long, sweetly exquisite pulses; and just as he comes, as all his internal verbal filters disintegrate and all the tension of the last week dissolves in soft, whispered promises of love and protection.

“No one, Phil…no one will touch you in anger again, no one will hurt you. Not if I can stop it, not if it means I have to take them down with my bare fucking hands, not if I have to use all the power of this whole fucking ship to protect you. Never again...never again.”

 

_fin_


End file.
